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Then allow for inflation

Correct, Ian, one can catch himself going backwards at times.

But with interest rates all over the place and inflation rising and falling in rapid gyrations, one also needs to consider the value of the money he receives. With maybe 1.6 trillion dollars pumped into the banking system, one needs to be aware that hyperinflation is a distinct possibility over the next few years.

Honey is edible gold, and will always have enormous power at street level. Its value in relation to eggs and milk may not change much at all. As such, it becomes a monetary unit in its own right. It may be a better money to save than gold itself.
'
The French have a word I Like. It is 'numeraire.' It roughly means, 'that by which we value all else.' Dollars are no longer a valid numeraire. So try measuring every thing you work for, everything you need, and everything you already have in pounds of honey for a while and it will give you a whole new insight into whether to buy, sell, or hold.

value

John makes some good points. While no one knows what the price of honey will be at any time in the future at least we know have produced a tangible (and edible) product that fulfills a basic human need. Unlike some other businesses that refer to themselves as "industries" at least at the end of the year I know I have either directly produced or indirectly helped in the production (as in pollination) something of real value. Now back to my day job as hedge fund broker.........just kidding folks.

Reptuable honey packers

test all the loads they are going to buy, for the antibiotic that is the signature of bad chinese honey.When found they do not buy, merely return it to the seller, who readily pursues another buyer.The FDA is not notified, or for that matter do they care???????
USA- CONCEALMENT OF TAINTED IMPORTED HONEY WIDESPREAD, U.S. HONEY PRODUCER SAY

Hmmmmmm , is there something wrong with this picture, the inmates are running the jail I think.
The result is the contaminated honey eventually gets sold, probably at a even lower price than the initial offer and ends up blended AND OR on the shelf.
The good reputable packers are doing nothing to rid themselves of the industry scum..... they must love cheap competition , or maybe there hoping the scum will get caught ,and what ? pay a fine?

Free line of credit

Originally Posted by John Smith

Correct, Ian, one can catch himself going backwards at times.

But with interest rates all over the place and inflation rising and falling in rapid gyrations, one also needs to consider the value of the money he receives. With maybe 1.6 trillion dollars pumped into the banking system, one needs to be aware that hyperinflation is a distinct possibility over the next few years.

Honey is edible gold, and will always have enormous power at street level. Its value in relation to eggs and milk may not change much at all. As such, it becomes a monetary unit in its own right. It may be a better money to save than gold itself.
'
The French have a word I Like. It is 'numeraire.' It roughly means, 'that by which we value all else.' Dollars are no longer a valid numeraire. So try measuring every thing you work for, everything you need, and everything you already have in pounds of honey for a while and it will give you a whole new insight into whether to buy, sell, or hold.

Honey in the tank is money in the bank!

Cheers,

JohnS

The Honey in my tank is hard as a rock.
I just finally had to buy a new truck and it cost me 34 barrels of honey. Thats down 3 barrels from last year at this time. In April I have to pick up 600 package to get another season started and that will cost me another 29 barrels. The load of FHC I just got in cost me 11 barrels. You know your right looking at it this way it isn't that bad. The only bank I use is my warehouse. By the time I get my money from the packers I have to pay everyone else. Boy if it wasn't for those Packers. It must be nice to have a free line of credit.
Ron

A long and bitterly rewarded war has be waged by the American Honey Producers Association
against the contaminated Chinese honey.........it will take more time ,more money and more dedication to win this war
The FDA or the USDA have no definition of the food called honey.

Normally any contaminated food found is destroyed.......... not with honey , not that it is too valuable, it is just to dam easy to sell into a demanding market at the right price.

irwin

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill

Geography has made us neighbors.
History has made us friends.
Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies.
Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.
John F. Kennedy

Bartering Database

Originally Posted by The Honey Householder

The Honey in my tank is hard as a rock.
I just finally had to buy a new truck and it cost me 34 barrels of honey. Thats down 3 barrels from last year at this time. In April I have to pick up 600 package to get another season started and that will cost me another 29 barrels. The load of FHC I just got in cost me 11 barrels. You know your right looking at it this way it isn't that bad. The only bank I use is my warehouse. By the time I get my money from the packers I have to pay everyone else. Boy if it wasn't for those Packers. It must be nice to have a free line of credit.
Ron

Click on SAVE for that data, Ron. We need a list of what honey will buy, from trucks and real estate to milk and haircuts, so we can compare notes in 12 months and see whether or not we are gaining or losing.

With your permission, I will start a data base and post it in honey_australia noting your statistics. All I need then is for more beeks to volunteer a contribution or two and we will have our database. It could be very useful in all bartering transactions, which, I might add are VERY tax efficient. Perhaps such a data base is already going? Does anyone know of such?

>>Normally any contaminated food found is destroyed.......... not with honey , not that it is too valuable, it is just to dam easy to sell into a demanding market at the right price.

I dont doubt your comments, but I really dont understand how that is possibley happening. I am very involved with the cattle industry, and you know as well as I do how sticky they are with contaminated meat. If anything is found, everything is discarded. I would only expect the CFIA to do the same with honey, and if its a case where packers arnt reporting the contaminated imports, then, dont you feel they would be setting themselves up for a big liable mess?

Tainted honey

I want to comment on Irwin's post # 60. It's interesting to see that some packer's test for honey and if they refuse the load because of residue issues, they do not notify the FDA. They justify that position by saying it's not my honey so it's not my problem. At that point they've only tested the honey and have not paid for it.To a degree I understand what they are saying. The honey then re-enters the market thru another packer, at least that's what the honey broker wants.

In a way it would be in the interest of packer #1 to "blow the whistle" on that load of honey. It would be in his short term interest to have that honey removed from the market particularly if it gets offered to a second packer for a few pennies less. Packer # 1 is competing with packer #2 who has access to cheaper albeit contaminated honey.

So how come packer #1 does not blow the whistle? Does he value the relationship with the honey broker so much that he does not want to cause him any grief ? Is there such a shortage of honey that from a packer's point of vue it's better to pack honey with residue or honey that has circumvented duties than to pack no honey at all? From the packer's point of vue the worse that can happen to him is not to have honey to pack. Whether that honey is cheap or expensive if you do not have any you cannot pack it and resell it.

he is appointed by usda, but does not work for the usda, he works for the nhb...which is a private trade group. another officer of the nhb (bob coyle) seems to be armpit deep in the "honey laundering scam"...it seems actions have been started to seize his house.

the nhb also declared "the bee movie" an educational film, and i believe spent 1million dollars co-promoting it.

it is an offence not to

Failure to notify FDA of a reportable food is added to the list of "prohibited acts" in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

And we in Canada are not saints, a certain eastern Canadian packer upon finding some contaminated honey in his inventory, asks the CFIA what he should do, they said ship it back to china and he did,........now if you believe that it was shipped back to china,you and I both believe in the tooth fairy.
Needless to say that packing company changed ownership last year.

I guess the bottom line is nobody has died YET from consuming contaminated honey,.... that we know of.... a person would probably have to eat several pounds at a sitting to endanger his life, unless allergic to the antibiotic chemical .Most of this product is put into the industrial bakery trade market where 10 cents worth of honey allows the manufacturer to put honey on his label.The good name of honey has been taken in vain many times
It is however burying an industry,nailing it to the cross.......the American honey industry deserves better respect from those packers handling it one step away from the consumer and from those who promote it......they are worth nothin compared to that product HONEY

Some in the industry seem to think that they can sweep this little bit of dirt under the carpet, where it can hide and no one will notice it.......but it ain't going away and neither are the AHPA

re Bob Coyle

Give a crook enough rope and he can usually manage to hang himself. Investigators have tellexis's from his Chinese supplier stating supplier is worried about the contaminating chemical being found by FDA and supplier saying chemical is going to be around for a couple of more years...... the rewards must have been worth the risk or it was soooooooooooo easy in the past couple of years to pull this off........the market was there

Bob says he's going to get out of the honey brokerage buissiness.......pretty hard to run a buissiness from jail.......he has conspired to defraud the US govt out of alot of money.Being
homeless and in jail at the same time isn't harsh enough punishment for this low life.

Of course one is ALWAYS INNOCENT till proven guilty in a court of law.........hope they throw away the key

In China they recently executed two people in the melamaine milk scandal..............kinda like their justice for people who want to mess with food for a profit ....that causes loss of human lives

Last edited by irwin harlton; 01-28-2009 at 11:13 PM.
Reason: more info

>>certain eastern Canadian packer upon finding some contaminated honey in his inventory, asks the CFIA what he should do, they said ship it back to china and he did

I wonder what he found in the honey,?

Im confused a bit. Maybe I have just assumed any foods that have found to be adulterated have to be destroyed.
there was some packed coop labled honey in Alberta that had been taken off the shelf because of adulteration of some kind, hoeny from china.
What happened to that honey? Did they distroy it? or was it shipped off to someother market else where in the world?

ZERO TOLERANCE FOR chloramphenicol????

chloramphenicol,an banned antibiotic in food OR the trademark for Chinese honey
I really forgot how nasty this stuff is

Humans may develop fatal aplastic anemia if exposed orally to chloramphenicol (risk is approximately one person in 25,000).
This condition is irreversible and is not dependent upon dosages. For this reason, chloramphenicol has been banned from food animal use in the United States as well as from human use.
Washing hands after handling this medication is recommended.

Chloramphenicol is a potent, broad-spectrum antibiotic drug and a potential carcinogen used only at therapeutic doses for treatment of serious infections in humans. Due to the unpredictable effects of dose on different patient populations, it has not been possible to identify a safe level of human exposure to chloramphenicol. Therefore, Federal regulations
in the United States, Canada and the European Union prohibit its use in food producing animals and animal-feed products,including honey bees

The FDA is concerned about any detection of chloramphenicol in foods, according to Dr. Lester M. Crawford,
FDA Deputy Commissioner. "The Agency will take whatever action is necessary to protect the public health."
Therefore there is a zero tolerance for chloramphenicol in food. FDA is requiring testing for chloramphenicol to be one using FDA's LC/MS/MS method validated down to 0.3 ppb. But any confirmed residue below this level is considered food contamination.

Seems to me zero tolerance goes out the window when contaminated honey is returned to the seller, to do with whatever he pleases with it, and the FDA,CFIA is not told of the "bad" product.

Chloramphenicol tells the packer it's chinese honey no matter what the country of
origin says on the documents.
Sue bee and a few other reptuable packers test every load that they import,even all Canadian loads..... must be alot floating around

Adulteration

Ian and others:

I don't think the issue with chinese honey is adulteration. If there were better/cheaper tests for adulteration then I'm pretty sure it could become an issue. I've seen some outfits on the prairies with 4 boxes high and the feed buckets on , so one has to be careful when pointing fingers.

The issues with chinese honey are 2 fold. The residue issue with chloramphenicol, which unfortunately for them is banned in food. As Irwin pointed it's zero tolerance. So I guess being so clever it looks like they've switched to another antibiotic class fluoroquinolone. As a nation China is probably experiencing difficulties controlling AFB, EFB and who know's maybe some mutation of one of the above or some other bacterial disease.

The other issue is there great desire and ability to circumvent duties. It's unfortunate that their talents are wasted on such devious activities and not used in something productive.

Assuming that the good governement decided to destroy a load of honey, how do you suppose they would do that? I dson't think flushing it down the sewer would work to well. Just imagine granulation down the line.

>>Assuming that the good governement decided to destroy a load of honey, how do you suppose they would do that? I dson't think flushing it down the sewer would work to well. Just imagine granulation down the line

HA!

But what how do you suppose a company would go about distroying a whole production run of meat? They have to destory it somehow, I suppose they would expect the packer of the contaminated honey to do the same,
Talk about costly,